Better Collective A/S
STO:BETCO
Earnings Call Analysis
Q4-2023 Analysis
Better Collective A/S
Better Collective has experienced a significant expansion, adding 7 new businesses in 2023 and reaching an impressive 400 million monthly visits to their sports audience. The company has evolved into a leader in sports betting affiliation, developing top-notch skills in search engine optimization and conversion that are crucial as they enter the sports media industry. With in-house capabilities in audience growth and monetization, and amidst industry-wide struggles, Better Collective positions itself as a major acquirer and optimizer. The introduction of their AdTech platform, AdVantage, is aimed at capitalizing on untapped brand advertising potential by targeting both endemic and non-endemic partners. The success of this platform could eliminate intermediary fees, increase CPM rates, and cement Better Collective as a premier destination for brands seeking sports audience exposure.
Sports win margin is expected to remain stable over time, avoiding major fluctuations. A key development for 2024 is the ongoing transition towards revenue share contracts in North America, albeit with the acknowledgement that CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) components will persist due to certain partnership preferences. This transition is paired with the integration of Playmaker Capital, which initially posts a lower margin, and a gradual shift happening in audience attraction to convert users into revenue share customers. Therefore, while Better Collective foresees a 2024 dampened by these transitions, there is an expectation of an upswing starting from the following year, influenced by the company's revenue mix and the eventual assimilation of Playmaker Capital into a higher margin operation.
A key focus is maintained on enhancing Google search rank through the building of strong, trustworthy brands—a long-term strategy that is expected to hold firm even as AI-generated content becomes more prominent. On the revenue side, there's an intentional move to diversify the advertising base beyond the betting companies and to attract major sports advertisers, aiming to leverage Better Collective's significant reach to expand into new advertising segments. Through Better Collective's AdTech platform, the company is positioning to run campaigns aligning with major sports events like the European Championships, opening up revenue potential that extends beyond traditional betting-associated events.
For 2024, Better Collective guides margins to be slightly below 2023, primarily due to the inclusion of Playmaker Capital, as mentioned earlier. However, medium-term margin targets have been raised with expectations that the company's margins will progress to between 35% to 40% towards the end of the guided period. This improvement will be supported by tailwinds in North America and a successful margin transition in Playmaker Capital, reflecting the company's strategic focus on acquiring entities that complement and enhance its current business model and margin profile.
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Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Better Collective Q4 2023 Presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. Now I would like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mikkel Munch-Jacobsgaard. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for our webcast. My name is Mikkel Munch-Jacobsgaard and I'm the Senior Director of IR, Strategy and Comms here at Better Collective. As always, I'm joined by our Co-Founder and CEO, Jesper Sogaard; and CFO, Flemming Pedersen, who will help me walk you through our Q4 and full year performance.During Q4 we've seen a lot of progress in our business, as well as having created a lot of amazing sports content to our huge sports audience. Here on the front page, you see a picture from one of our recently announced podcast shows with basketball legend, Shaquille O'Neal, in which he partners with our North American brand, Playmaker HQ. Please follow me to the next slide.We ask you to pay attention to this slide where we display our disclaimer regarding any forward-looking statements in today's webcast. Please turn to the next slide.Here you'll see today's agenda. Jesper will start by taking you through the highlights of 2024 and Q4. Hereafter, Flemming will take you through the financial performance before handing the word back to Jesper for business review. And then we, of course, end the call with a Q&A session, as usual. Let's get going.Please turn to the next page as I hand over the word to you, Jesper.
Thanks a lot, [ Mikkel ]. Being a large shareholder myself, we start with one of my favorite slides. 2023 was the 19th year in a row where we managed to grow both top line and EBITDA. We have provided the market with a new guidance for this year, which we set out to be the 20th year continuing this development. I'm also proud that we again this year met, and even exceeded our external financial guidance, which we even increased twice during the year. Please turn to the next slide.2023 was an eventful year for Better Collective. We grew our revenues by 21% and the underlying recurring revenue grew even faster. Our operational earnings grew faster than our revenue at 31% as we ended the year with a 34% EBITDA margin. Due to the strong underlying performance, coupled with accretive acquisitions, we upgraded our financial targets twice during the year.Further after a strong Q4, we ended up exceeding the revenue guidance. In North America, we grew the business organically by 5%, while we absorbed our transition towards recurring revenue share.It was a busy year on the M&A front as we acquired 7 companies. Most recent, we acquired a large group of sports media in Playmaker Capital and with this acquisition, we build out our strong position in the North American market, while we gain market leadership in South America.Lastly, the development of our internal AdTech platform, AdVantage, has had a promising start and we intend to scale the efforts further during 2024.Please go to the next slide, where I hand over the word to Flemming to take us through the financials.
Thank you, Jesper, and good morning to you all. Let's dive into the numbers and walk through the financial highlights for Q4 and the full year. So please follow me to the next slide.Q4 turned out to be a strong quarter as the performance led us to exceed our financial targets on revenue, while revenue growth was flat. During Q4 of 2022, we saw a great boost from the Mens' World Cup in football. The pre-registration activities for the state opening in Ohio and not least the state opening in Maryland, which made the comparisons quite tough. So on that basis, we are very pleased with the performance.The strong performance came from strong deliveries across the group, where our Europe and Rest of World business grew 14%, of which 4% was organic. This was delivered on top of the mentioned tough comparisons from the World Cup 2022. Our U.S. business continues its transition to revenue share, which I'll come back to in a bit.On EBITDA, operational earnings, Europe and Rest of World grew 17%, which again was a quite amazing achievement on the back of last year. North American EBITDA was down 57% in Q4. However, I remind you that we delivered an unusual high EBITDA last year of 51% due to the Maryland state opening, pre-registration activities in Ohio and most of that being on CPA, thereby upfront revenues.I'm very pleased with both of these business segments, especially in North America as we still managed to grow the overall new depositing customers as well as revenue share NDCs by a high number, boding well for sustainable future growth.Lastly, the cash flow was very strong for the quarter, growing 79% with a cash conversion of 124%. Please follow me to the next slide.Let's turn to the full year performance. 2023 was another year where we posted strong revenue growth of 21%, of which 13% was organic. This was coupled with even higher EBITDA growth of 31%, equaling a margin of 34%. It is worth noting here that this comes on top of 52% revenue growth and 53% EBITDA growth during the year before 2022. We are really proud of this development.2023 was another year of strong growth for our paid media business, which grew 29% and ended with revenue above EUR 100 million for the first time. Just like we are in the midst of transitioning in the U.S. to recurring revenues, we did the same during 2021 and 2022 in the paid media business. The snowball of recurring revenues has made it possible for us to deliver a margin of 29% versus 16% the year before, equaling a growth of 76%.Europe and Rest of World grew 29%, of which 17% was organic growth. The growth came from the broad-based performance in Europe, South America and also through our media partnerships. In the U.S., we grew 9%, of which 5% was organic growth, while absorbing the continued transition towards revenue share. The cash flow for the full year came in at EUR 119 million, growing 71%, which implies a cash conversion of 103%. Please follow me to the next slide.We continue our focus on recurring revenue, which grew by an astonishing 47% during 2023 to total EUR 189 million. Despite the revenue in Q4 was flat from prior year, we grew recurring revenue by 15%. Recurring revenue made up 56% of group revenues. And out of the recurring revenues for the full year, 75% came from revenue share income, 17% from subscriptions and 8% from advertising sales.At Better Collective, sustainable long-term value creation is in our DNA, and I'm very pleased to see how our commercial team in the North America has been able to absorb the revenue share transition, providing strong value in the long run. Allow me to dive a bit into this mechanism on the next slide.Ever since the PASPA repeal in 2018, we have been pushing for revenue share agreements in North America, just like in most of our operations in the Rest of the World. During Q3 2022, a bit more than 1 year ago, we succeeded in either fully or partially transitioning the first of our commercial contracts to this way of collaboration. Remind you, we favor revenue share agreements as this model puts us in the same boat as our partnering sportsbooks, allowing us to develop more strategic and long-term partnerships. In short, we succeed when they succeed.Further, we estimate that the customer lifetime value of revenue share customers in most cases are higher than the upfront CPA, although it requires that we must wait a bit longer, or somewhat longer before we can harvest the fruits.Another important reminder in this regard is that revenue share is by no means new to us. We have been working closely with our partners for more than 2 decades on revenue share contracts. And during 2023, we made EUR 106 million in recurring revenue from this revenue type.If we then look across the Atlantic, we managed to grow our total number of new depositing customers by 32% during Q4 compared to the same quarter the year before. Out of these, 55% were on revenue share contracts, implying revenue share NDC growth of 66%. Due to this and the tough comparison to last year, revenue was down by 23% during Q4. That was the Q4 impact.On the full year basis and despite of the transition, the North American business grew 9%, which 5% was organic growth, leaving us even more confident in our decision, seeing that we can generate short-term growth while investing in the future.As I said during our last webcast, I would like to stress that this transition phase will continue to have a short-term dampening effect on our financial performance in the coming quarters also into 2024. This is something that we must see through as it simply is an opportunity we cannot miss out on.Please turn to the next page, and then the word back to you, Jesper.
Thank you, Flemming. Please follow me to the next slide, where I'll do a brief business review of 2023. During 2023, we added 7 new businesses to our group, leaving us with an even broader global footprint. Our sports audience has grown to more than 400 million monthly visits, and we truly have a very strong sports media brand network across the globe.Over the years, we have expanded our capabilities in Better Collective from being a contender to a leader in sports betting affiliation. In this, we have developed world-class search engine optimization and conversion skills. These have proven crucial to our next leg of the journey as we take on the sports media industry.We find ourselves uniquely positioned as we are experts in growing audiences and monetizing them efficiently. It is no secret that large parts of the industry are struggling, and we see ourselves as the key acquirer and optimizer moving forward. We will continue to innovate as we constantly find new ways to grow and monetize. Since the IPO in 2018, we've grown our reach from 7 million to 400 million monthly visits.Hence, we now see an opportunity in building out and scaling our internal AdTech platform, AdVantage, as we have an untapped potential in brand advertising. If we succeed with this, it will make us stronger as a group as we'll be able to utilize not just performance marketing, subscriptions and sponsorships, but also direct advertising.Our core focus on sports make it possible for us to cater and serve targeted and contextual content and advertising to both endemic and non-endemic partners. If we are successful, the platform will optimize our third-party agency relations and will rid ourselves of most of the intermediary fees. Being able to do more direct advertising, we also expect a significantly higher CPM rate than we currently have achieved.Our long-term ambition with AdVantage is to become the go-to partner for brands searching for sports audience exposure and sports fan engagement. Currently, we only run ads on our esports brands through agencies. And moving forward, this will increasingly become direct advertising and expand to most of our owned and operated sports brands, and ideally, in the long run, also all our media partnerships.I want to stress that this is a new area for Better Collective, and there will likely be bumps on the road along the way. However, it is something that makes me very excited about the future. Please turn to the next page.Since 2017, we have acquired 34 companies and become comfortable with the rollout model. In the beginning of our M&A journey, we acquired traditional sports affiliates to gain scale and become a leader within this field. With our new vision of becoming the leading digital sports media group, we started to acquire true sports media brands. And as I showed on the previous slide, we have come quite far with this already.Also on this slide, you can see our combined reach to the right, making us the third largest sports media group in the world in terms of monthly visits on web-based properties.If you move down the table, you can find some of our brands and media partnerships scattered across the industry. The tail is very long, and we show this to give an impression on how big of a potential there still remains in this fragmented industry, where we believe we are the best owners of sports brands and the best sports partners to legacy media.However, after the 7 acquisitions we've made during 2023, 2024 calls for some months with consolidation and integration. It is time to harvest the fruits through tech platform migration and optimization of revenue models, resulting in audience growth and improved monetization.2024 will also be a year where we continue our innovation and investments into AdVantage as well as several AI projects such as automated proprietary content creation and distribution. Further, we will continue to push the North American revenue share transition. These investments will prepare us for the future. Please turn to the next slide.2024 is filled with exciting sporting events such as the Africa Cup of Nations, which took place at the start of the year, as well as a busy summer with both the European Championshipand Copa America for mens' soccer. For Q1, the Super Bowl has already taken place in the U.S., while the state of North Carolina also is expected to launch online sports betting during Q1. Lastly, the regulation of sports betting in Brazil also seems to be approaching. However, the timing is uncertain. Please turn to the next page.In Better Collective, we pride ourselves in delivering on our promises, and we are proud to have done so year-after-year since the IPO. Looking ahead, we remain highly committed to our financial targets as we see significant growth prospects within the sports media industry. I'm excited to share our bold 2024 financial targets, expecting revenue growth of 19% to 29% and EBITDA growth of 13% to 22% with net debt-to-EBITDA to stay below 3x.We thereby expect to maintain strong operational earnings, while confidently continuing our investments in the future. Within this guidance, it is worth highlighting a few points.During 2022 and 2023, we have seen exceptional growth of which we are very proud of. However, some of this has provided us with a higher one-off base heading into 2024. For instance, during January, 2023, we had our best state launch to date in Ohio, which was solely based on CPA. This year, we will likely have one state launch in North Carolina. However, this will be a revenue share. Hence, the short-term impact is smaller.We are excited to have added Playmaker to the group. However, given this is not a cost-out exercise, but to a large extent a revenue synergy case, we do expect flat growth as we invest in revenue share buildup and take some near-term advertising away. Thirdly, we will continue the revenue share transition in the U.S., which will continue to impact 2024, as Flemming alluded to, as we expect the real uptick to happen in 2025.And lastly, we'll continue our investments into AdVantage to further diversify our revenue streams, while also investing in other AI projects to prepare for the future as a global digital sports media group. And with all of this in mind, I'm very excited that we are still able to guide for high top line growth and solid EBITDA growth.We started the year with EUR 27 million in January revenue, which is in line with our expectations. However, this is down as compared to last year due to the one-off effect from the Ohio state launch. I would like to remind you that during last year's Q4 webcast, I also flagged that the extraordinary January momentum was not to be expected moving forward.Furthermore, this will be the last time we give out a trading update for the first month of the coming quarter as it doesn't give a fair insight into the upcoming business performance, just like we saw for Q3, where October took a hit from the sports win margin. However, it was reconciled during the rest of Q4. Please turn to the next page for a summary.So to summarize 2023, we saw solid growth across the group and with our strong focus on recurring revenue, we managed to grow this even faster at 44% -- 47%. EBITDA also grew strongly throughout the year at a faster pace than revenue. This strong performance made us upgrade our target several times throughout the year and exceed the latest target on revenue.We absorbed the revenue share transition in the U.S. and still saw organic growth. Our internal AdTech developments are off to a good start. We acquired several businesses, bringing us closer to our vision of becoming the leading digital sports media group. And lastly, we increased our long-term financial guidance for 2027.This concludes our webcast presentation. I'll now pass the word back to the operator and open for questions from the audience. Thank you for listening in.
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Sebastian Grave at Nordea.
Congratulations on the strong results. So I have a few, I'll just take them one by one. First of all, if we look at your revenue mix for the full year on a group level, you achieved EUR 116 million in revenue share income in 2023, which is EUR 60 million above what you achieved in 2022. And I mean, if I'm not mistaken, this increase is largely driven by the 600,000 NDCs sent on revenue share contracts back in 2021.Now in comparison, you sent 1.3 million NDCs on rev share contracts in 2022, which, I guess, should start to hit the P&L here in 2024. So a bit of a long run up here, but I guess my question is, in that light, is there any reason why we should not expect a significant higher year-on-year increase in revenue share income in 2024 than we saw in 2023? That will be my first question.
Yes. I think we are -- you can say we are not guiding on specific revenue streams. And you can say, the modeling of NDCs to revenue share is, of course, difficult, also especially from the outside. We also now have revenue share contracts which are hybrid contracts, in particular, in the North America. So we would not be able to comment on whether to expect revenue growth on that part or not. But it's -- we can say that we are extremely pleased with the NDC performance in the past couple of years, also in 2023. So we are optimistic, but I think we need to stay with our financial guidance, as I stated in our report.
It's completely fair. But maybe just -- I mean, underlying -- I mean on sports win margin, why is there sort of -- can you compare 2022 to 2023 like-for-like? Can you remind us of that?
On sports win margin, you can say our position is that over time, it is quite stable. And also to Jesper's comment on -- sometimes we have looked at specific months, and it is not really representative because over time, the way we work and the way our partners work. It is very stable. So we don't expect any bigger swings there.
And then on to my next question, I guess, maybe also to you, Flemming. So as you alluded to, the main sort of negative P&L factor for 2024 is going to be the transition, or the continued transition towards revenue share contracts in the U.S. Now I guess, that means that the -- sort of the downside potential or -- is isolated to what is in -- on [ Page ] -- [ 2023 ], the North American CPA sales of EUR 55 million achieved in 2023.So I mean, what should we think of this level going forward? I know you're probably not going to give me a firm number here. But I mean, conceptually, is it fair to assume that there will always be some sort of CPA component in the mix? And I mean in Europe, for instance, roughly 10% of the NDCs you send are on CPA contracts. Is that sort of a fair comparison base to use also or apply in the North American region going forward?
I think there will always be CPA because there are simply partners where we prefer working on CPA. Also, revenue -- working on revenue share is like having a really long-term financial contract. And it is a financial liability between -- you can say, for -- on our partners. So it is something where we need to both believe in product and long-term partnership, et cetera. So there will always be CPA and also some of our partners that only wants to work on CPA. So that will always be the case.Again, giving specific numbers to that is not something that we can. But you're right, next year in 2024, as we also flagged in previous quarters, we will continue this transition in North America that will put a dampening effect, as I also mentioned this time. It takes time to, you can say, get into a tailwind territory, in particular, also when we work on hybrid models. Then the duration is actually longer before we get, you can say, the tailwind effect.We have in previous webcast indicated that we will begin to see tailwind from next year. And that is still our expectation, given the mix that we are seeing right now. And then I also want to remind that we have acquired Playmaker Capital that comes in initially at a lower margin than the rest of the business. It's purely mostly advertising sales.And you can say, the transition of Playmaker Capital into also working with performance marketing or affiliation is something that we have said will take at least 1 year before we sort of see that take off, also because most of that will also be on revenue share contracts. So that's the whole idea with that acquisition, is to basically add on what we are good at. So that will also have a margin dampening effect during '24, just as a reminder.
And then you actually touched upon my last question as well. So on the Playmaker Capital, so you say it takes 1 year for this acquisition sort of to take off, I guess, from a P&L perspective. But if we look at the -- sort of the NDC generation or I mean -- so my question is basically, how fast can you roll out sort of the affiliation setup on Playmaker Capital websites in South America? And when should we start to see sort of impact on the NDC generation from this?
Yes, I can answer that one. Jesper here. So it's already now ongoing work to prepare and make that shift. One part is also the mix of audience that we attract from a Google perspective, where in order to convert users, it also relates to the kind of audience that you attract. And that's where we have expertise and are now developing content and gaining valuable rankings in Google. That doesn't happen overnight. But during the year, we expect that we'll see good developments there. But the work has started, and we have parts of the business where we're already seeing NDCs going through. So it's a gradual ramp-up that we'll see during the year.
Your next question comes from Oscar Ronnkvist at ABG Sundal Collier.
Just -- So the first one, just wanted to dive a little bit deeper into the revenue share transition in North America. So I think you had a -- sort of a pretty straight line upwards when you presented on the CMD, you [ sent ] -- [ 63% ] of your NDCs in North America on revenue share contracts in February. And then, I think we had like a similar number in Q3 and now it came down to 55% in Q4.So you talked a lot about the revenue share transition. So I do acknowledge that it could fluctuate between quarters, but it looks like it's trending kind of flattish or actually a bit downwards since the CMD on an underlying basis can also compare that January and February. Ohio was a pure [ CPA ] NDC launch, as you mentioned. So just -- is this a decision by you given that you see the best net present value in that mix? Or is it just a demand from your customers at the moment?
Yes, I can go first, Oscar, Flemming here. If you sort of make that comparison, clearly it is a volatile environment, you can say, where we see new partners coming in. So if you have a new contractual partner, say, from Q4, working on CPA, of course, that partner will generate a lot of NDCs in initial phase. And there are customers, as we also discussed, that simply prefer working on CPA, which also we like, because otherwise, it would be a difficult transition.If we -- if you just look at Q3 to Q4, we also need to look at absolute numbers and not just percentages. So in Q4, we sent 150,000 NDCs in North America versus [ 65 ] in Q3, given it's a lower activity in Q3. So on that basis, we actually send 50% more revenue share customers quarter-over-quarter. So I think that's -- we are really focused on the absolute number.And of course, the mix of contracts we have with our partners influences this and when partners go live in a given state. So it will be a mix, and it will not be 100%, I can't imagine that. And it would also be a fairly expensive venture if we did that. So it is a balance and also partly in the hands of the partner mix.
Yes. And if I should just add a bit, and I think we have stated that in previous calls that we don't expect the U.S. market to be fully in line with the Rest of the World market in terms of share -- revenue share and CPA as it started out as a CPA market. We do expect that some players will stick to that model. So now we are at a good level. And as Flemming said, with new entrants, it may start on CPA and we'll work on then changing that, but we'll have to wait and see how that will progress.
This is very, very reasonable. So just -- I mean following up, so I think you say in the 2024 implications on the new financial targets that you see that the North American recurring revenue share transition to be a headwind. So just wanted to get a sense of -- I guess, that you're still -- I don't acknowledge that it won't be like 100% or in the same sort of area as Rest of World and Europe maybe, but is it still going to be a headwind year-over-year that you expect the revenue share agreements as a share of the total to increase maybe, so it becomes a headwind versus that if you would have sort of stayed with the CPA mix?
It's very difficult to answer, Oscar. And it is, again, coming back to the mix of partners also when a given partner decides to enter a new state. I just remind that not all sports books have yet entered all states. So they are basically gradually launching. So it also affects the mix going forward and how we basically work with our partners in that rollout.So it is a dynamic thing, and I would hate to give a number on that. We are trying to balance things best possible and with the preference of working on revenue share, of course, but also appreciating that some of our partners want to work on CPA for now.
Yes. And again, adding to that, I think January is a really good example. 1 year ago we had the Ohio state launch which was even bigger than the New York state launch, and that was solely driven by CPA revenue, which gave a very, very high spike in our business. And it is a bit out of our hands which states will launch, which operators will be best positioned and which deals will be in place in any given state. Our focus is really the bigger picture that we are gradually working towards growing the revenue share part of this. But having said that, there will be fluctuations based on which operators in which states and based on the state's launches as well.
Just -- I had another one on your AdTech platform. So you talk a lot about migrating the CPM revenue to your AdTech platform instead of using third-parties. Do you have any sort of sense of how beneficial this is in monetary terms? I'm not talking about like euros rather than sort of a multiple maybe. Is it anything that you can expand on how we should think in quantitative terms on the migration to your AdTech platform?
It's obviously -- it's a new area to Better Collective. We started working -- focused on this at the beginning of last year developing the AdVantage platform. And the reason why we had a dedicated resource to this is, obviously, we do believe there's a big potential. But we also want to make sure that we know what is that potential before we speak about it. But it's surely driven by looking at other businesses, the kind of CPM rates they're achieving comparing to what we see within our network of brands and obviously seeing there's some potential. We'd like to see if we can achieve that potential. So it's something we're excited about and optimistic, but we want to make sure that we know more before we say anything related to numbers.
Yes. Mikkel here. And then a further point I would like to add is that it's -- it is actually demand-driven. So it comes from some partners coming to us saying that they would like to be able to do this given our global reach now. And again, back to Jesper's point, we have seen industry estimation, so to speak, but we are not willing to come out with any estimates as of now. We would like to see ourselves succeed with this. And then we will, of course, update you in due time in terms of what we expect moving forward.As of right now, the focus is to have something ready for the summer where we hopefully can run some of our first and scale some of our first campaigns heading into the European Championships. So -- but we are, of course, still early in the phase of this.
Just -- still on the CPM revenue or the AdTech platform. So do you have any sort of aims to diversify your customer base? And like specifically talking about -- I mean, obviously, you have a very large exposure to betting companies at the moment. So how would you sort of balance the intake of -- on the CPM side? Are you aiming to diversify it to sort of non-betting affiliated companies?
It's a natural step. And it's also a part of that potential of improving our CPM rate is to increase the advertiser space, so who can advertise with us. And we know for a fact that if you want to work with the biggest advertisers in sports globally, it's also a size game where we need to reach critical mass. And I do believe that we are getting there with the audience we have. So we hope and believe it will unlock a new group of potential advertisers with us that are not necessarily endemic to the sports betting space.
Just -- sorry, a final one just on -- I think you mentioned AI with AI-generated content, I believe -- So obviously, you see the benefit of the efficiency. So just wondered about sort of your thoughts on Google rankings regarding AI-generated content? And if you are -- sort of how do you balance the sort of, I don't know, risk that could affect your Google rankings with the benefits of the efficiencies?
It's something we have a strict focus on, the development of the Google search landscape. We fundamentally believe that the long-term winners -- and this is sustainable way of gaining Google ranks, is by owning strong brands. And that's really why we in recent years have been so focused about finding these local, strong brands with a lot of authority and trust because we know Google tend to favor those sources over time. And it's a similar expectation in an AI world, where, even though the content may be generated via assistance from AI for the journalist, it still matters to you which brand is sort of delivering that article in terms of how much can you trust it.So fundamentally, we believe in the strength of brands in this. And we obviously monitor the search landscape very closely also from the tests they are doing in a closed environment in the American Google.
I will take over here and move on to some written questions we have. The first one, I will direct to you, Flemming, I presume. EBITDA margins are expected to decline year-over-year in 2024. However, you recently raised your medium margin -- medium-term margin target. Can you please provide some color on how you expect margins to progress over the next few years with some attention to the large revenue share cohorts acquired in 2021 and remind us of the profit curve of the revenue share cohorts?
Yes. Just looking at -- trying to chop up the question. In 2024, as mentioned, we will have a bit of, you can say, effect from Playmaker Capital. It comes with a lower margin than the rest of the business. Hence, we are guiding a bit below 2023 on the margin. And as Jesper also said, there was a special effect on the baseline in -- on CPA revenue in 2023. So that's one thing. The other one that we discussed was the revenue share transition continuing in the U.S. So in 2024, still putting a bit of a [ damper ] on the margin development. We have then used the long-term guidance and also commented that in the later years we see margins moving up on group level between 35% to 40%, but that is towards the end of the guidance period where we see the tailwind also in North America, and we see the Playmaker Capital transitioning into higher margins as is the plan with that acquired company. So that is how we see it and also hence the guidance for 2024.
And then we have another question here on Playmaker. Do you expect Playmaker sales and profit to be flat in 2024? Please, can you provide an explanation for this as I would have expected robust growth given the market backdrop and possible cost synergies?
Jesper here. As I alluded to earlier on, there is work in progress already now in terms of developing content, gaining rankings, driving audience that we can convert on the performance marketing model. The revenue effect of that will be delayed. Having said that, we were, of course, focused on harvesting as many synergies as fast as possible and with an effect as soon as possible. But we would just have to accept that for -- the revenue share buildup, it will take time. But I can assure you, a lot of work is already ongoing, and there's a big focus on this integration.
And then another question here around North Carolina state opening and possible gaming legislation in New York and whether this is baked into our guidance or if you have left that out of the guidance?
Yes. On North Carolina, we're excited that, that state will open for online sports betting already from March 1. So that is a big state and something that our team over there is preparing for, as we speak. Regarding New York and potential iGaming regulation, it would be fantastic if it happens. But it's something that we haven't baked into our numbers and guidance. It is a political process and something that we take in when we see it.
Then we have a question on the AdVantage platform. And the first one was, if we could provide some color on it? I think we have provided quite a lot of color on it both on the webcast and in the following questions. But there is a follow-up question on this, whether this will enable us to better monetize events like the Olympics alongside media partnerships, which has not historically been a big event for us, as well as gain better brand partnerships for events such as the European Championships in football for the men?
Yes. As Mikkel actually mentioned, we are preparing for the European Championship because we do expect to see quite significant brand exposure demand during the European Championship. So I would agree with this question that we hope and expect that these very big events may be more exposure-driven in terms of brand exposure, which would be beneficial for AdVantage. But we'll have to wait and see.
And the Olympics [indiscernible] [ move forward ] once successful with this platform will, for instance, be an event that we historically haven't been able to monetize because there's not a lot of betting on the Olympics, but now we can do it through, yes, the AdVantage platform and brand advertising in that sense. So that is correct.Then we have a question on a very specific commercial deal that we have with one partner. I will make it a bit general because we never comment on specific commercial terms. But it revolves around cookies -- third-party cookies and how we expect the development in this going forward and also how we impact that change in the market. I guess that's for you, Jesper.
Yes. So over time, there will be changes occasionally to how we can track and how we collaborate with our partners. And it's actually also part of the development of the AdVantage platform that this gives us new ways of monetizing the audience where we are not as much dependent on the performance marketing model. There will be a waterfall flow of how we present ads and monetize with the AdVantage model.And that is sort of built in to our performance marketing model. I know it's a bit technical, but we are used to seeing changes that can affect how we can track players. It's an ever-evolving process. We also have the [ death ] of the third-party cookies from Google, something we are preparing for and have models in place to manage. So for us, it is natural that we see development and progressions in terms of tracking over time.
Thank you, Jesper, and thank you, everyone, for listening in to our webcast. This concludes the Q&A session. Thank you for showing interest in Better Collective. Have a nice day.
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